Robin attack

[Cristina]

In the past few days, something weird has been happening at our house. There's a robin that keeps crashing into our kitchen window. My DH was very naive and thought that the bird was trying to sit down on the curtain rail (which of course is inside the glass), but I immediately remembered reading about this in a forum a while back (oh, the random bits of information we pick up in digi forums! ): the poor bird is seeing its reflection in the glass and attacks it thinking it's another bird!

Anyway, we pulled down the shade, and it didn't help. Yesterday I was working from home and it was getting ridiculous, so I even printed out owl silhouettes and attached them to the window, but that didn't seem to help either. Today, though, it wasn't nearly as bad, but I'm thinking it's not because of my owls, but just because it was cloudy and dark, and there wasn't much of a reflection. I suppose the next step would be to put some kind of wire on the outside of the window.. This bird is going to drive us crazy if he keeps at it much longer! Anyone have other suggestions?

I'll be back in a bit to post pictures of this robin's favorite hangout outside the window.

 

[lmccandless]

We were having the same problem on some windows at back of the house. We read that hanging up wind chimes that move in the wind and make a sound provide good deterrent for birds. We haven't had a single crash since we put up the chimes, so it definitely worked.

 

[Angie4b1g]

LOL picturing the owls!

 

[Karen]

The building that DH and I both work in have shiny mirror reflection on the outside of our windows. We are in the lower level, so the window sill is about waist high and we have all kinds of birds attacking themselves out there. The worst are these nasty turkey vultures that came last summer and strutted around and pecked at the windows ALL. DAY. LONG! It is very hard to work with that going on!

Kinda makes me laugh at their intelligence level though. I hope the wind chimes help you out!

 

[Cristina]

Thanks for the support! I'll look into wind chimes, Laura! Although I suspect DH will talk me out if it, because we do like having the birds around, we just don't want them to crash into our windows! We're assuming he has a nest nearby, and we don't want him to leave..

And wow Karen, that sounds positively awful!

Here's our dumb robin, perched on the thermometer outside the kitchen window:

This picture totally cracks me up. And just a few feet away:

 

[my2monkeys]

Ours isn't a robin... but starting last spring we've had a bird that keeps attacking our windows... I don't think there is a single window this bird hasn't gone after... including the front storm door. I haven't heard it for a few months (since it flew south I would think) but I'm gonna have to remember the wind chimes thing if it comes back.

 

[kimbytx]

look at you using your printer/hybrid skills to try to tame birds. Hope you find a solution. How weird